Showit vs Wix: Which web design platform is right for me?

Years ago, I had my website hosted on Squarespace. Then, I got tired of the block style or required code for Squarespace, and I moved to Wix (I know, I know, designers everywhere are cringing). I liked the drag and drop capabilities of Wix and had used it for a large company I worked with in the past. I also liked that I could easily customize the mobile version, so that users could have a professional mobile experience. 

Then Showit stepped through the door and my life was changed. I moved from Wix to Showit so that I could further customize my website design and cater it to the client’s experience. 

When it comes to Showit vs Wix, there are several factors to consider. 

Are you looking for an all-in-one, affordable platform, or a very customized, beautiful design? Both platforms are fairly customizable, but we’ll get in to why I like Showit better for its design experience. That said, Showit does come with a couple downsides and costs more than Wix.

Both are drag-and-drop platforms.

When it comes to Showit vs Wix, they’re both easy to use! On either platform, you can easily drag and drop elements like images, headlines, buttons, and more.

However, Showit ultimately offers more customization capabilities. You can completely control what a button looks like. Want a button to be a circular shape? Just fine.

Wix’s design interface is also clunkier. I noticed that it has similarities to Squarespace’s Fluid engine, where you can certainly customize the location of elements, but you can’t really move it down to the pixel without using code. 

Mobile friendliness.

When it comes to being able to customize your mobile website, both Wix and Showit are fairly flexible with their capabilities. However, Showit allows you to completely hide elements on mobile or desktop, allowing for a more customized mobile design.

Showit allows you to edit the mobile and desktop views at the same time. I love this view because I can ensure that the user experience is similar but unique on each view. I love being able to change what each design looks like, and I find it more time efficient to design on both views at once.

Creative Control: Showit wins

You can pretty much do anything you want with Showit’s design, including cropping images to a nitty-gritty level, adjusting the shape and size of buttons (as mentioned earlier), and creating a design that feels slightly more responsive than Wix’s capabilities.

When my website was hosted on Wix, I noticed that elements would sometimes shift after publishing, which caused a huge head ache and forced me to reach out to customer support multiple times. I’ve found that Showit’s design editor is more reliable, and elements stay in their place after publishing. 

Customer Support for Showit vs Wix

When it comes down to customer service, I prefer Showit’s support team. Their entire team is based in Arizona, and are easy to talk with. However, if you’re a phone call person, Showit’s team can’t be access through a phone number. 

Wix allows you to add more colors to your palette.
This is one nitty-gritty detail that I actually liked better about Wix. With Showit, you can only add 8 colors to your palette. You can still use more colors throughout your website, but the design settings limit you to this amount of colors. On Wix, you can add more. That can be nice for people who are using bigger color palettes, but intentionally.

If you’re DIYing your branding and your website, it can actually be a better idea to stick with a smaller color palette anyway. This is because adding too many colors to your site can make it feel busy and like a messy brand rather than one cohesive, curated brand. 

SEO capabilities

When it comes to optimizing your site for Google, you really can’t go completely wrong with any website platform. I will die on this hill, but any SEO expert who tells you that you need to use a specific platform to be successful with SEO is misinformed.

However, Showit does make it easier to update settings like your Page Titles, metadescriptions, and alt text (only slightly). The biggest per of Showit vs Wix when it comes to SEO, that I’ll mention below, is the ability to optimize blog posts. 

The Blog on Showit vs Wix

Talking about SEO capabilities inevitably leads us in to the platforms’ blog capabilities. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but my life was ultimately changed when I started blogging through WordPress with Showit. When you have a website through Showit and pay for a blog plan, you’ll get a blog set up through WordPress. I love writing blogs in WordPress because you can utilize the perks of Yoast SEO, which helps you to write posts optimized for Google.

A big downside of switching from Wix to Showit (like I did) is that the blog transfer process is very manual. If you switch from WordPress or Squarespace to Showit, Showit’s team will help you transfer up to a certain amount of posts. However, Wix isn’t included in that perk. Thankfully, I only had around 5 blog posts at the time, so it wasn’t a lengthy process. However, it could be a big deterrent to business owners who have tens or hundreds of blog posts. At the time when I was using Wix, I also wasn’t informed enough about SEO to really optimize my blog posts, so it would have taken more time and energy to make sure I was blogging to the fullest. 

Domain hosting

With Wix, you can actually host your domain through the platform. For Showit, you will need to host your domain through a site like GoDaddy, Google Domains, or Bluehost. We love Google Domains because we also have a Google Workspace account!

Overall monthly/yearly cost for Showit vs Wix

Wix is ultimately the more affordable option here. However, it looks like their prices have increased since we had our website hosted there. Wix offers 4 plans in total, which is more options than Showit’s plans. Showit is a manageable cost per month or year, however you have to consider that it doesn’t come with capabilities like email marketing or domain hosting.

Now that I’m with Showit, I am investing in additional marketing services like Flodesk for my email marketing and Google Domains for my domain hosting. Those costs can add up, but they’re also the cost of doing business if you have an online business like me.

TLDR; When it comes to Showit vs Wix, we prefer Showit. But, they are both easy-to-use platforms for those looking to DIY their site.

If you’re investing in working with a website designer, you’ll likely get a more beautiful website by designing on Showit. In my opinion, it’s also a longer term platform. If you’re DIYing your website and trying to get something published quickly, Wix is a good started website platform. If you’re really serious about growing your online presence as a creative small business owner, I would strongly recommend Showit. 

Interested in a breakdown of Squarespace vs Showit? Read more here.